WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT?

I turned 24 today. And as I bobbed my head out from under the quilt this morning, I thanked God for giving me another year and yet another chance to do my damnedest at making the new one better. Today wouldn't have been as hard as it is had it not been my Dad's birthday, too. He would've turned 64 and oh, how handsome he would've looked at 64. The various first anniversaries after a loved one's passing are always the worst: their first birthday, your first birthday, anniversaries and Eids. These days come rolling around even though the one you love is gone.

There is a sign leaning up against a tree across the hospital's emergency exit that reads: "If tears could build a stairway, and memories could build a lane, I would walk all the way to Heaven. And bring you home again." I see it whenever I go out for a smoke and I remember Dad every time. The logical side of me says it's just some mawkish bit of poetry. But the emotional side, which has lately been calling the shots in my psyche, doesn't want to hear it, because that's exactly how I feel.

I saw that sign again today when my friend and I went out for a breath of fresh air, and I cried. My family has moved out of one community - those who celebrate with their living fathers - into the one that goes to the cemetery and celebrates with memories. I wish I could have put my membership off a lot longer, but so many of my friends lost their Dads when they were in their teens that I feel like I have no right to complain. For now, though, I grab peace in bits and pieces but it's the sort that exists alongside a kind of perpetual mourning and restlessness as I picture us singing along, harmonizing our voices, dancing the familiar dance and matching each other's steps; ancestor and descendant, teacher and student, father and daughter.

You prepared me to carry the threads you laid down when you moved on. And though, I've got an ocean full of tears and a stack of memories a hundred stories high, but still no way of getting you back from Heaven, I just hope I bear them well.

JUMPING SHIP

When I first began clinical rotations at medical school, I often overheard interns and residents briefing senior physicians on a patient's condition adding that "he denies pain." They didn't say the patient wasn't having any pain; just that he denied having pain. It sounded like they were trying to avoid any legal repercussions should it turn out that the patient in question actually was in pain. It made me think of Peter denying Jesus three times before the cock crows, or a suspect in an old black and white crime film denying a murder rap. The first time I heard that expression, I scoffed inwardly but later I decided they were right. That phrase came back to me yesterday. I tried to deny a whole lot of pain, but the pain was not denying me.

As I took a shortcut through the Casualty Unit on my way home, I couldn't help but notice the commotion going on around a DOA (Dead on Arrival). The victim was an 8-year-old boy propped up on a gurney with tubes sticking out and an airway device in place. He had bled to death after massive internal hemorrhaging following a hit and run. Next to his lifeless body sat his grandmother, a once full of life, small and shrunken elderly woman clutching her oxygen tank. It was heart-breaking. I was quite shaken, not just by the tragedy but how those two seem to be our choices in this life: go before your time or slowly fall apart.

I decided to drive down to the beach and take a walk. The day was beautiful, unseasonably warm, as they say; reminding everyone that winter was indeed coming to an end. After a short stroll, I started my march back toward my car. I looked out on the water and saw a huge ocean liner, all lit up and sparkling like a fabulous jewel, heading out for open sea.

I never thought much of cruises. The idea of being unable to leave a group of people who turn out to be boneheads never appealed to me, add to that all those stories of ship-board plagues, accidents, assaults, and other tales of woe, I pretty much scrapped the whole experience off my list.

But last night was different. I've spent so much time studying, working and dreaming about being a great doctor or writer, I sometimes fear that my ship might sail without me. I wanted to be onboard that ocean liner so badly I could taste it. I pictured myself standing on the deck eyeing the shore as the city lights and my pain with it grew smaller and smaller until they disappeared. Wait for me, I whispered at the shrinking vessel, wait for me.

I would create a new identity and give out a fake name, I thought. Maybe put on a quasi-European accent, just to keep my fellow passengers guessing. I would hit the dance floor every night and sleep until noon the next morning. I'd meet lords and ladies, counts and countesses, industrialists, and stock market wizards. I'd begin a whole new life as somebody else. Selfish? Of course. But then I will be the one bearing the brunt of patients and their families once I return to the hospital. Still, just this once it felt nice to sail away and into obscurity.

But then I decided to go back to work, my meek existence in tow, do the right thing no matter how hard and unnerving it got. I went back to the ER, spoke with the family and comforted them the best way I knew how. My Arabic amused them and briefly filled the room with muffled nasal laughter. Something gained, I decided; however trivial.

Meanwhile, I'll work on my accent and keep an eye out for passing ocean liners. For whenever I need to jump ship.

PEOPLE I HAVE OUTLIVED

Barring some sort of fatal tragedy before Tuesday the 20th, I will turn 24. With this birthday I will have officially outlived River Phoneix.

Others I have now outlived:

ALEXEI ROMANOV, 13, ASSASSINATION
PETER II TSAR OF RUSSIA, 14, SMALLPOX
EDWARD VI OF ENGLAND, 15, TUBERCULOSIS
ANNE FRANK, 15, TYPHUS
GRAND DUTCHESS ANASTASIA, 17, ASSASSINATION
TUTANKHAMUN, 18, GANGRENE
RONNIE CALDWELL, 18, PLANE CRASH
JOHN SPENSE, 18, SUICIDE
JOAN OF ARC, 19, BURNED ON STAKE
BILLY THE KID, 20, GUNSHOT
SID VICIOUS, 21, OVERDOSE
BUDDY HOLLY, 22, PLANE CRASH
FREDDIE PRINZE, 22, SUICIDE
IAN CURTIS, 23, SUICIDE

And, of course, RIVER PHONEIX, 23, "Multiple Drug Toxicity" which would be an "overdose" for the rest of us.

If 17 and 22 didn't get me, I think I'm good for another few years. Also, I'm pretty sure Tuberculosis and Smallpox aren't going to get me.

"Death by FOX News", perhaps?

OF GREEDY APPETITES AND GLASS HOUSES

This past week, on a girl's night out, was greatly disturbed to meet the young wife of a prominent construction industry bigwig. At first the estrogen-speak induced recurring ignorance and plastic plutocracy much like that of the nouveau riche had me shrink away in disgust, but soon realized she was just getting started when she announced that in an American-Airlines-one-olive-at-a-time cost-cutting fashion, her husband tactfully introduced a clause on the labor force's contract allowing the company to deduct AED 75 from the worker's wage should said worker fail to report for duty and AED 45 in case of a fight. Only in this case, not one but two olives will be plucked from under boy blue (quite literally) considering his already non-existent pay. "According to our estimate, on account of the fights alone we should be able to save thousands on book by the end of the year", says she.

Exactly what makes them steal food off a poor man's table when they have want for nothing?

A rather heated debate ensued on the losing end of which she sat, all thanks to her hopelessly wanting logic. The poverty of her ideas out of concern, as hypocritical as the virtue-flaunting of politicians, forced me to make my exit. Reasoning with tragically stupid sheep little good will do.

Alas, there shall be a judgment day.